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Parks and Recreation Review: "Galentine's Day"

Ron Swanson has officially confirmed that he is the coolest television character after with this week's Parks and Recreation. Not only does Ron bring the laughs, this week he brought the insightful pearls of wisdom.

The Valentine themed "Galentine's Day" focused more on relationships, rather than the standard laugh-out-loud moments of Parks. Maybe it's because we're sappy around this Hallmark Holiday time of the year, but we feel Parks has given us enough laughs and fleshed out their characters enough to deserve it.

The weakest of the four relationships covered, Leslie and Justin's came to an end last night. That's where the brilliant Ron stepped in and finally hit the nail on the head with Justin: he's a tourist. Good riddance to this douchebag story teller. Only poor Tom was hilariously heart-broken as he acted like the child in divorce during the break-up.

Speaking of Tom, the poor guy finally poured his heart out to Wendy only to be crushed. In the funny, obnoxious way only Tom could, he retaliated with a little blackmail. Is anyone else dying to know the conversation they had the left them hugging at the end? Damn you NBC and damn you Olympics!

Unfortunately, boring Ann and Mark took up some valuable screen time of our precious thirty minutes with their great-on-paper love story, but boring-on-comedy playout. Luckily, Andy and his band brought the laughs as the clueless idiot played music from a decade he just didn't get.

Andy definitely had us laughing as he metaphorically had the old ladies flashing him. The love quadrangle behind Andy, April and her gay boyfriends finally came to an end, but a little jealous Ann may at least give us a triangle.

We definitely enjoy Andy and April the most of all the relationships, and that combined with ending Leslie's short-lived relationship with Justin made this episode worth it, even if it was light on the laughs.

Of course, no Parks review would be complete without mentioning John Larroquette's guest appearance. While he played the loser incredibly, save for a few entertaining lines, this plot line was a little painful.

Leslie: Some of them have been married for half a century. And, no offense, but everybody here is terrible at love. Divorced, dating a gay guy, divorced twice, jury's still out on you two, and Jerry, who knows? Jerry: I've been happily married for 28 years. You've met my wife, Gail, many times. Leslie: Whatever. | permalink

Justin: Pick you up tomorrow around noon. Leslie: For our nooner, which is a cute word! Ron: Explain it to her later. Leslie: Explain what? | permalink

Andy: Uh, I mean that sucked. Didn't it? Bandmate: Maybe if you sang it like Louie Armstrong? Andy: Maybe, yeah. I mean here's the thing though: Who is that? | permalink

Andy: My problem is I don't know how to tell if we're doing good, because when you play a rock show, it's really easy to know if you're doing great because chicks will flash their boobs at you. When you're up on stage. And you're like, "That musta sounded pretty good." But I can't, if that happens here my eyes will fall out of my head and I'll die. | permalink

If you look inside your bags you will find a few things. A bouquet of hand crocheted flower pens, a mosaic portrait of each of you made from the crushed bottles of your favorite diet soda and a personalized 5,000-word essay of why you are all so awesome.